Life Expectancy, Human Capital, Social Security and Growth

Revised: 2006-11.-- Published as an article in: Journal of Public Economics 90(12), December, 2006, pp. 2323-2349.

An empirical comparison of the performance of alternative option pricing models

Published as an article in: Investigaciones Economicas, 2005, vol. 29, issue 3, pages 483-523.

Model driven product line engineering : core asset and process implications

Reuse is at the heart of major improvements in productivity and quality in Software Engineering. Both Model Driven Engineering (MDE) and Software Product Line Engineering (SPLE) are software development paradigms that promote reuse. Specifically, they promote systematic reuse and a departure from craftsmanship towards an industrialization of the software development process. MDE and SPLE have established their benefits separately. Their combination, here called Model Driven Product Line Engineering (MDPLE), gathers together the advantages of both. Nevertheless, this blending requires MDE to be recasted in SPLE terms. This has implications on both the core assets and the software development process. The challenges are twofold: (i) models become central core assets from which products are obtained and (ii) the software development process needs to cater for the changes that SPLE and MDE introduce. This dissertation proposes a solution to the first challenge following a feature oriented approach, with an emphasis on reuse and early detection of inconsistencies. The second part is dedicated to assembly processes, a clear example of the complexity MDPLE introduces in software development processes. This work advocates for a new discipline inside the general software development process, i.e., the Assembly Plan Management, which raises the abstraction level and increases reuse in such processes. Different case studies illustrate the presented ideas.

An Estimated New-Keynesian Model with Unemployment as Excess Supply of Labor

Wage stickiness is incorporated to a New-Keynesian model with variable capital to drive endogenous unemployment uctuations de ned as the log di¤erence between aggregate labor supply and aggregate labor demand. We estimated such model using Bayesian econometric techniques and quarterly U.S. data. The second-moment statistics of the unemployment rate in the model give a good t to those observed in U.S. data. Our results also show that wage-push shocks, demand shifts and monetary policy shocks are the three major determinants of unemployment fl uctuations. Compared to an estimated New-Keynesian model without unemployment (Smets and Wouters, 2007): wage stickiness is higher, labor supply elasticity is lower, the slope of the New-Keynesian Phillips curve is flatter, and the importance of technology innovations on output variability increases.

Environmental Concerns in Water Pricing Policy: an Application of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA)

25 p.

The DICER Model: Methodological Issues and Initial Results

31 p.

Instituciones Microfinancieras y banca tradicional: diferencias en funcionamiento y resultados durante la crisis

Español: A finales del 2007 muchas entidades financieras comenzaron a mostrar cifras negativas en sus balances y tras la quiebra de entidades de gran peso económico como el banco Lehman Brothers en Estados Unidos en septiembre del 2008, el mundo se ha visto envuelto en una crisis económica de la que parece no verse el final. Las entidades financieras tradicionales han centrado sus esfuerzos en obtener las mayores rentabilidades posibles, invirtiendo sus recursos en activos muy arriesgados, que si bien en un principio generaban beneficios muy elevados, a día de hoy han hecho quebrar muchas entidades a nivel mundial y han provocado la pérdida de los ahorros de muchos ciudadanos. Ajenas a esto se encuentran las entidades microfinancieras, que con un enfoque muy diferente al de la banca tradicional, se han centrado en proporcionar financiación a aquellos que dada su situación económica y falta de garantías no podían acudir al sector financiero tradicional. Tras realizar un análisis de los resultados de ambos modelos financieros desde 2006 hasta 2012, se ha podido comprobar como el sector microfinanciero presenta resultados más favorables y muestra una mayor prosperidad de cara al futuro. Por lo general, estas entidades mantienen niveles de solvencia más elevados y emplean todos sus recursos en proporcionar financiación a sus clientes. Finalmente, la solución a los problemas del sistema financiero tradicional se basa en un aumento de los niveles de capital de sus entidades, volviendo a un modelo de banca tradicional centrado en ofrecer financiación al público, con provisiones más liquidas y mayores garantías ante necesidades de liquidez como las retiradas masivas de depósitos recientemente sufridas.

Optimal Taxation and Indeterminacy in the Uzawa-Lucas Model with Sector-specific Externalities

Documento de trabajo